Driverless Shuttle Pilot Program Launched in Las Vegas, Shuttle Crashes Within an Hour

The driverless shuttle program in Las Vegas began with a bang on Wednesday.

Literally.

Within an hour after it began making its loop around Las Vegas, the shuttle and a delivery truck collided. No one was injured in the accident.

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The self-driving, electric shuttle is designed to make Las Vegas the first city in the United States where a self-driving shuttle is operating on the streets along with other traffic.

AAA, which sponsors the shuttle, is partnering with the city of Las Vegas, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and Keolis Transit America on the project.

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Officials said that in Wednesday’s accident, the driverless shuttle was not to blame.

“The autonomous shuttle was testing today when it was grazed by a delivery truck downtown,” read a statement issued by the city of Las Vegas.

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“The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s (sic) sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately, the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle,” the statement said.

“Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided.”

“The shuttle just stayed still. And we were like, it’s going to hit us, it’s going to hit us. And then it hit us,” passenger Jenny Wong told KSNV.

“The shuttle didn’t have the ability to move back. The shuttle just stayed still,” she said.

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However, police did ticket the truck’s driver for illegal backing.

Maurice Bell, vice president of mobility solutions for Keolis Transit America, said the shuttle gathered data on the incident that could be used to help prevent future bumps along the road .

“That’s probably the positive point of all this,” Bell told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “is that we have extensive data to be able to tell us what occurred and what we could do in the future to improve upon.”

During its one-year test run, the Las Vegas driverless eight-seat shuttle will be free to riders.

“It’s usually really more of a fear, I think, of leaving the known than it is about the future of the unknown,” said NASCAR driver Danica Patrick, who was on hand for the initial demonstration. “So sometimes you just have to let things go and when it’s in the best interest of safety, I think it’s a smart thing.”